


Stumbling Towards Better

by LearnedFoot



Category: Russian Doll (TV 2019)
Genre: Background/backstory Nadia/John, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Judaism, Of canonical levels, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21808153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/pseuds/LearnedFoot
Summary: Five Yom Kippurs in Nadia’s life.
Relationships: Nadia Vulvokov & Alan Zaveri, Nadia Vulvokov & Maxine (Russian Doll)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 76
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Stumbling Towards Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FanchonMoreau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanchonMoreau/gifts).



_1._

Nadia’s mom didn’t believe in god, except for those times when she did. And when she did, she _did._ Half-assed was never in her vocabulary. 

Mostly, it wasn’t too bad. Random Saturdays suddenly spent at temple, smiling shyly at the neighbors who stopped to say hello. “Oh, Lenora, we haven't seen you here in a while,” they’d say to her mom, with a hint of accusation. Mom called them busybodies, cruel prying harpies who weren’t in god’s good graces anyway.

(See, when Mom believed in god, she was suddenly just about the only person on Earth living a pure life. Her, and the rabbi. Maybe.)

Even back then, Nadia wasn't sure Mom was right about those other women. Sure, some of them were cold; the ones in prim dresses molded to their bodies, tailored and perfect (“Do you know how many homeless people they could feed with the price of those outfits?” Mom would whisper in Nadia's ear, as if she had ever given a single dime to the homeless in her life). But there were others, round and warm when they hugged Nadia, who didn’t seem like harpies at all. They called her sweetheart, acted like they were invested in her life, even though she couldn’t have told you half their names. She didn’t see what those women had to do with the angry monster birds in her illustrated guide to Greek myths. _Mother hen_ was a phrase she’d heard; that seemed more appropriate.

Point is, it wasn’t so bad, those brief brushes with god. Sometimes she even got a homemade meal out of it, when a hen insisted they come by after service for a meal. 

But then there was the time Mom decided to repent. Looking back later, Nadia’s pretty sure Mom got her wires crossed somewhere. Right holiday, but she had a distinctly Christian-lite take on the whole concept. There wasn’t much owning up to anything, no resolve to change: she wanted to go into a confessional, throw in a few Hail Marys and walk away clean, sin washed away by the power of god’s forgiveness and eternal love. The way Mom talked about god somehow always conveyed that she thought he looked like a bearded hippy with his arms outstretched.

Still, with a family history like theirs, you don’t exactly forget you’re Jewish. She might not have had the spirit of the thing, but Mom knew they were celebrating Yom Kippur, and she latched onto one clear rule: you don’t eat.

Turns out, the fasting is supposed to be for a day. One god damn day. But Mom got it into her head that if fasting for a day is good, fasting for more days has to be better. By the time they got to synagogue, Nadia was nothing but a pit of hunger in a scratchy maroon dress. Her first Yom Kippur, and she didn’t register a single word the whole service. Not that she spoke Hebrew, but normally she would follow along with the English translations in the book. She liked the songs; they wormed down deep in her heart, ancestral and raw. Made her feel like she was part of something, even if she was mostly on the outside of it, a guest in her own community. When she heard those songs she at least felt like she _had_ a community to be an outsider from.

But that day, she couldn’t think past the hunger. Looking back, she’s not sure how old she was, but not very. Young enough that if she’d been one of the normal kids, the ones who came every week and knew the prayers, the ones who belonged, she probably would’ve been allowed a few snacks. But she wasn’t one of the normal kids, so there she was, day two of no food.

She doesn’t remember the words of the service, but she does remember digging her fingers into the palm of her hand to stop from crying. The endless, endless, endlessness, drowning in the prayers and the songs and all those things that normally made her feel warm. And then: her mother’s grip on her wrist, dragging her away as soon as it was over. She remembers protesting, no, _no_ , they were supposed to get to eat now, Ms. Meyerowitz had offered to have them over, there was plenty of room, plenty of food.

“You should be grateful,” her mother told her, yelling as they stumbled towards the subway. “I’m helping you cleanse. We’re cleansing.”

She remembers not eating until the next morning, when Ruth came over. She remembers a lot of yelling about that, too.

(Years later, Maxine came home with a box full of BluePrint juices, which filled half the fridge in their shoe-box Bed-Stuy apartment. That night, Nadia got drunk and poured half the stock down the drain before Maxine caught on and stopped her, screaming that the juice cost more than her entire paycheck.

“Cleanses are _bullshit_ ,” was Nadia’s only explanation.

Maxine didn’t talk to her for a week, but that was okay. Back in those days, they didn’t talk for a week at least once a month. It was their thing.)

_2._

When Ruth first took custody of Nadia, she got the idea that she should help her connect to her roots. Who knows why; maybe Nadia had told her the thing about the songs and the community at some point. But, well—love her to death, but Ruth was not the kind of woman who got up and went to temple on a Saturday morning. She had other things to do.

But the High Holidays, that was a different story. If you at least do the High Holidays, you can say you’re doing something right. That’s what Ruth told Nadia as she took her hand, leading her to temple. She hadn’t given her much warning, and Nadia wasn’t at the stage in life where she had an independent sense of time, so she didn’t know where they were going or what holiday it was. What she did have was sense memory; as soon as she stepped into that synagogue, the panic lit a fire under her feet.

Ruth didn’t catch her for nearly five minutes, until Nadia fell down in the middle of the sidewalk, sobbing. Ruth didn’t ask. She just took her to Katz’s Deli.

“You don’t want to be there,” she explained when Nadia questioned why she didn’t make her go back. “Besides, this is close enough.”

They never went to synagogue after that. They did go to a lot of delis. That felt right.

_3._

Maxine moved into the yeshiva less than a month before Yom Kippur, and took that as a sign she should celebrate the holiday.

“It’s not really a _celebration_ kind of event,” Nadia tried to explain, slumped against a box that was serving as furniture, rolling a joint. “Also, not to appropriate the concept of appropriation, but I’m pretty sure that would be appropriation.”

“Not appropriation,” Maxine corrected, pacing. She had been pacing for days, not comfortable in her own home. Probably because there was no furniture, or maybe because it was her first time on her own, no parents, no roommate, no boyfriend. “ _Appreciation_. And exploration. How am I supposed to know which faith is right for me if I don’t try them all?”

She was going through a finding herself phase. It was annoying. Nadia raised the joint to her lips, taking a long inhale for dramatic effect. “It’s a religion Maxine, not an outfit. More than a religion. It’s my culture.”

“Your ‘culture’?” Maxine waved her fingers in exaggerated air quotes. “I know more Hebrew than you do.”

She had a point, but no amount of points would to get Nadia to synagogue on Yom Kippur, and for all her airy confidence, Maxine felt awkward going alone. The fact that she had zero other Jewish friends to take her was, Nadia suggested, a cause for concern, given that they lived in New York fucking City. But she didn’t, so they reached a compromise: shrooms in the yeshiva, and they would think about their wrongs.

They did fast first, which was a really stupid idea, because it ended with Nadia plastered to the floor, fingers spread wide as she melted into the past. She could hear the prayers of the yeshiva students, the murmured Hebrew and chattered Yiddish.

“It’s bad that I’m not in synagogue,” she told the ceiling, which transformed into Lizzy’s concerned face. They didn’t know Lizzy very well; had just met her at a party a few months before, actually. But she had gone sober for six months as part of an art project and she was more than happy to babysit (“I miss it," she’d told them enthusiastically the week before. “Please, please give me the chance for a contact high”). So here she was, face upside down, halo glowing around her hair.

Okay, that last part _may_ have been the drugs.

“You said that already,” Lizzy told her. “Like three time. Do you want to go to a synagogue right now?”

Nadia waved her hand, or at least thought about it. She was slightly unclear on how well thought was translating to action in the moment. “That is a terrible idea. Very terrible. Do not let me do that.”

In the background, she could hear Maxine whining an apology into the phone. She was talking to her ex, which was also a terrible idea, but Nadia couldn’t be responsible for other people’s mistakes at the moment.

Her head was warm, like a smile. Oh, because Lizzy was petting her hair. Nadia wasn’t sure if they really knew each other like that, but it felt good: a light flickering on in the darkness. Those voices, the ones from the past, young people who actually believed, receded, drifting away like smoke on the air. Her guilt floated away with them. She didn’t owe her ancestors anything. She didn’t owe anyone anything.

She was living her life, and she had nothing to apologize for.

_4._

The year before everything changed, Nadia didn’t even realize it was Yom Kippur until she and John walked by a synagogue on their way back from brunch. Her arm was looped through his and she was wearing his scarf, because it was colder than she’d expected. It was never colder than _he’d_ expected. He was the kind of guy who checked the weather and owned scarves. She liked that about him.

“That’s a lot of people,” he observed, as the doors of the temple opened and a somber stream poured onto the street, interrupting their walk. “Is it a holiday or something?”

Nadia had to check her phone to be sure. “Huh, yeah,” she confirmed. “I should give Ruthie a call.”

They managed to weave a path through the crowd. Families and friends gathered in clumps, chatting quietly, planning their days. Nadia overheard one kid, maybe twelve, complain to his mother that he was hungry.

“Just a few more hours, sweetie,” the mom assured him, which was a lie. Nightfall was more than a _few_ hours away.

Nadia clenched her hand into a fist and picked up the pace. John didn’t like it when she made scenes, and telling a twelve-year-old stranger that he had six more hours of being hungry would definitely qualify as making a scene. She managed to contain herself.

See? And he said she never did anything for him.

“Do you ever go?” John asked once they were free of the throng. “For old time’s sake, at least?”

“That’s a fucked up question,” Nadia snapped in reply. 

He let it drop. That’s another thing Nadia liked about him: occasionally, he knew when to let things drop.

_5._

“You’re coming with me to synagogue next week,” she told Alan.

“I’m…I’m not Jewish.” His smile quirked up in the corner, the way it always did when she said something that confused but didn’t frighten him. It’s a different smile than the one he’d gotten a few weeks ago, when she insisted they go to a warehouse party in deep Bushwick because he still needed to work on having fun. “You know I’m not Jewish. We’ve definitely been over that.”

“Yeah, but it’s Yom Kippur.” When he just stared at her blankly, she explained, “It’s one of the High Holidays? Our Day of Atonement?” He shook his head: no idea what she was talking about. “Well, anyway, doesn’t matter. You have a week to read up on it. The point is, I’m going, because a year ago this annoying little asshole I know pointed out that maybe the universe was punishing me for not being my very best self. And while your theory there didn’t really pan out, I’ve been thinking maybe I should, you know, atone.”

“But you don’t believe in god.” That was true, or close enough. She’d had a moment, dancing down the streets on a wave of ecstasy, where she’d thought, _maybe_. She still thought _maybe_ , sometimes. But if there is a god, it sure isn’t the one of her people. There’s nothing about looping time anomalies in the Bible, she’d checked.

“Sometimes, it’s not about believing,” she explained. “Sometimes it’s about tradition.”

He still didn’t really understand, but he did come, because he liked the idea of atonement. Maybe more importantly, he liked the idea that _she_ liked the idea of atonement. That was kind of their thing, now: stumbling towards better, together. Like a support group for general life shit, where the only qualification for joining was dying about twenty times in a row. So far, they were the only members.

She chose the temple she’d gone to with her mother. It wasn’t close, and she hadn’t been there in well over two decades. The entire inside had been renovated so long ago that she couldn’t even call the benches they slipped into _new_ , because they were scuffed and scratched. They weren’t new, just different. She didn’t recognize anybody—could not, in all honesty, swear that this was even the same congregation.

None of that stopped her heart from hammering in her throat when the first prayer began. Tears caught in her eyes, blurring the pages where she was trying to read along. She wiped them quickly, but not subtly. When she dropped her hand back to her lap, Alan took it.

He didn’t say anything, not even a whisper. That would be rude, probably. He didn’t like being rude. He didn’t even look at her; he kept his eyes on the rabbi, quizzical, interested. But he also didn’t let go, not for the entire service.

Eventually, her heart rate came back under control. The tears cleared. She was able to listen to the songs, and found they still wormed under her skin and into her heart. By the end, she was smiling, despite the hunger roiling in her belly.

“How do you feel?” he asked as they exited the building, breeze nipping at their faces. 

How did she feel? She felt like she belonged to something. To that, in there, a little bit. And even more to this, right here: him and her, facing the world.

“I feel hungry,” she told him cheerfully, wrapping her scarf around her neck against the cold. “Dinner?”

“Dinner,” he agreed, extending his arm. She took it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Feedback is always deeply appreciated!

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